Marquez: “I had to take risks”

Marc Marquez crashed out of fourth place at the French GP, remounting to finish in 13th but relinquishing his championship lead to Lorenzo.

Marquez started from second on the grid but got bogged down at the start of the race, before recovering to fourth by the end of the first lap. Try as he might, he could not make a dent in the gap to the leaders. Suddenly Andrea Iannone (Ducati Team) crashed out of the race on lap 7 to promote the Spaniard into third. With 16 laps to go, Marquez’s hard front tyre choice was coming into its own and he had managed to catch the second placed Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team), although Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) had also become embroiled in the battle for the podium at this point.

Rossi would pass them both to leave Marquez in an excellent fight for the final podium spot with Dovizioso, but with just 13 laps to go disaster would strike for the double MotoGP™ World Champion. Marquez lost the front at Musée corner at exactly the same time as Dovizioso in front of him. Luckily Marquez was able to remount and re-join the race, eventually crossing the line in 13th and collecting three vital championship points. Unfortunately this now means Marquez (85pts) has relinquished his Championship lead to Jorge Lorenzo (90pts) and trails his compatriot by five points, with Rossi just a further 7 points back in third

Marquez will be looking to bounce back at the Gran Premio d’Italia TIM, which takes place from the 20th to the 22nd of May.

Marc Marquez: “It was a pity about the crash today. I was having a good race, but these things can happen when you’re at the limit on every lap. I could have opted for a more conservative race, but here you can end up far back if you do that, so today I had to take risks. In the race I saw that I was losing ground under acceleration, and I had to make that back with my braking. Finally I lost the front and crashed. The positive is that I managed to get three points and I’m only five off Jorge Lorenzo in the standings, which isn’t a lot. Now we have a run of tracks that we found a little tough last year, but they’re quite different to Jerez and Le Mans, so I hope to be fast and have some good races.”